| dc.description.abstract | Hypertension among patients could be well managed if patients comply with the
prescribed dietary regimen. Noncompliance with prescribed dietary regimen is one of
the major causes for poor control of hypertension among hospital clients. Not much
work has been done on compliance to prescribed dietary regimen among hypertensive
patients in tertiary health facilities. This study was therefore designed to assess
hypertensive out-patients’ compliance with prescribed dietary regimen and associated
factors at the University College Hospital, Ibadan.
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 selected hypertensive outpatients.
A pre-tested interviewer-administered semi-structured questionnaire which contained
a 45-point knowledge scale, 24-points dietary intake pattern’s scale and 30 points
food frequency scale was used to obtain information on respondents’ sociodemographic
characteristics, hypertensive diet(nutritional) knowledge,compliance to
prescribed dietary intake, food frequency of hypertensive patient, factors influencing
compliance to dietary regimen and the observational features observed. Knowledge
scores of 0 – 30, ˃31 ≤ 38 and ≥39 were classified as poor, average, and good
respectively. Dietary intake pattern scores of 0 – 12, ˃13 ≤ 17 and ≥ 18 were
categorised as poor, fair and good dietary intake patterns respectively and food
frequency scores < 17, ˃18 ≤ 23 and ≥24 were categorised as poor, average and good
food frequency respectively. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square test were used to
analyse the data with level of significance set at 0.05.
Mean age of respondents was 55.88 ± 16.24years, 52.3% were females and 82.0%
were married. More than (50%) of the respondents were aged between 41 years and
above when first diagnosed of hypertension. Majority (85%) of them have been
receiving treatment for hypertension in the hospital for the past 6years. Only 12% of
the respondents have good nutritional knowledge while almost two thirds, (60%) have
average nutritional knowledge. Some of the factors deduced to be influencing the
nutritional knowledge of the hypertensive patients include age (X2=26.067,
p=0.0001), age when first diagnosed of hypertension (X2=25.345, p=0.0001), sex
(X2=10.225, p=0.006) and occupation (X2=27.076, p=0.001). More than half (53.7%)
of the respondents have partial compliance level to their dietary regimen. A major
reported barrier to compliance with prescribed dietary intake was difficulty in sticking
only to the prescribed diet (52.3%). The dietary food intake frequency showed
appreciable intake of some of the prescribed food between 4-7times in a week: fruits
(78%.3) and vegetable (79.7%). Consumption of fried food, ‘chin chin’ and biscuits
was shown not to improve weight loss, blood pressure and lipid profile. Vegetable
improves blood pressure while carbonated drinks improve the lipid profile.
The respondents’ knowledge on hypertensive diet was average which has a direct
effect on their dietary intake pattern and their food frequency. Difficulty in sticking to
only the recommended diet was found to be the main factor influencing noncompliance
to their dietary regimen. Therefore, there is need for training programmes
for dieticians and all health workers involved in dietary modification to always
consider the availability, affordability and suitability of diet before prescription of diet
to the patients. | en_US |
